and musketry and the sailor who hit the bull's eye received a pound
of tobacco. Without warning Captain Broke would order a cask tossed
overboard and then suddenly order some particular gun to sink it. In
brief, the _Shannon_ possessed those qualities which had been notable in
the victorious American frigates and which were lamentably deficient in
the _Chesapeake_.

Lawrence's men were unknown to each other and to their officers, and
they had never been to sea together. The last draft came aboard, in
fact, just as the anchor was weighed and the _Chesapeake_ stood out to
meet her doom. Even most of her officers were new to the ship. They had
no chance whatever to train or handle the rabble between decks. Now
Captain Broke had been anxious to fight this American frigate as
matching the _Shannon_ in size and power. He had already addressed to
Captain Lawrence a challenge whose wording was a model of courtesy but
which was provocative to the last degree. A sailor of Lawrence's heroic
temper was unlikely to avoid such a combat, stimulated as he was by the
unbroken success of his own navy in duels between frigates.

On the first day of June, Captain Broke boldly ran into Boston harbor
and broke out his flag in defiance of the _Chesapeake_ which was riding
at anchor as though waiting to go to sea. Instantly accepting the
invitation, Captain Lawrence hoisted colors, fired a gun, and mustered
his crew. In this ceremonious fashion, as gentlemen were wont to meet
with pistols to dispute some point of honor, did the _Chesapeake_ sail
out to fight the waiting _Shannon_. The news spread fast and wide and
thousands of people, as though they were bound to the theater, hastened
to the heights of Malden, to Nahant, and to the headlands of Salem and
Marblehead, in hopes of witnessing this famous sight. They assumed that
victory was inevitable. Any other surmise was preposterous.

These eager crowds were cheated of the spectacle, however, for the
_Chesapeake_ bore away to the eastward after rounding Boston Light and
dropped hull down until her sails were lost in the summer haze, with the
_Shannon_ in her company as if they steered for some rendezvous. They
were firing when last seen and the wind bore the echo of the guns, faint
and far away. It was most extraordinary that three weeks passed before
the people would believe the tidings of the disaster. A pilot who had
left the _Chesapeake_ at five o'clock in the afternoon reported that he